The cause of the widespread outage affecting image uploads on Instagram and Facebook has been revealed.
In a tweet posted this evening from the Facebook Business account, the company writes:
“During one of our routine maintenance operations, we triggered an issue that is making it difficult for some people to upload or send photos and videos. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and we apologize for any inconvenience.”
At the time this article publishes the outage is still ongoing and has been affecting Facebook and Instagram users for the better part of the day.
UPDATE (7/3 @ 7:09 PM): The issues affecting Facebook and Instagram appear to have been resolved. The rest of the original article continues below.
Facebook confirmed the outage at 9:18 AM EST today:
We’re aware that some people are having trouble uploading or sending images, videos and other files on our apps. We're sorry for the trouble and are working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible. #facebookdown
— Facebook (@facebook) July 3, 2019
Being an image-centric network, the issue is most noticeable on Instagram, where users have been unable to view photos, videos, or stories published today. Content published prior to today is still accessible.
There have been issues with images and videos on Facebook as well, but at least people can still communicate through text-based posts. Instagram, on the other hand, has been rendered unusable.
This issue would be less concerning if it was a one-off occurrence, but the July 3rd outage is just the latest of many outages so far this year.
Users are upset and extra irritated by the fact that this is happening all too often.
Twitter, being as reliable as ever, has become the platform of choice for people to vent about the outage. Ironically, it’s also where Facebook has been keeping users informed about the issue.
For the latest on what’s happening, check out the hashtags “#instagramdown” and “#facebookdown”
